victims of spouse abuse live in their homes highlights the cruel dilemma that many victims of violence find themselves in.

Women, and occasionally men, who leave an abusive relationship and seek shelter at the Physical Abuse Centre have done the right thing. The centre gives them a refuge where they are safe from their spouse or partner and can begin to rebuild their lives.

Yet the shelter is just what its name implies; a temporary place where people can go in emergencies. It is not a home, and the people who go there must move on at some point and start to rebuild their lives.

Unfortunately, people who have been in the shelter find it difficult to find housing, not because of anything they have done, but because prospective landlords or housemates fear the abusive spouse will come around and the violence will resume.

Thus, ex-partners are victims twice over. First they are victims of physical or mental abuse; then they are victims of homelessness -- and without permanent homes, their chances of getting their lives back together are negligible.

June Augustus, the founder of the Physical Abuse Centre, has stated that people seeking housing have usually made a clean break from their ex-partners, and the risk is therefore minimal.

Still, particularly in the case of the elderly, the fear is very real that people in taking in spousal abuse victims will put themselves at risk.

What is required is a leap of faith. The same goes for landlords who have been hitherto reluctant to rent homes to abuse victims; they will be taking a chance, but the benefits of helping a person to get back on his or her feet will outweigh that -- and, overflowing with gratitude, they may turn out to be great tenants as well.

ROOM SERVICE EDT Room service The list in today's paper of the decline in hotel rooms since 1983 makes graphic and sombre reading for anyone who cares about the tourism industry.

Since 1983, some 3,100 beds have been lost, cutting the number available to about 7,000. This means that any hopes of the Island returning to the halcyon days of 1980 -- when 600,000 air and cruise passengers visited the Island -- would be almost impossible to attain.

Tourism Minister David Allen says Bermuda should accept there will be fewer rooms and concentrate on providing higher service -- with higher yields per room -- to a fewer number of visitors rather than trying to compete in today's highly discounted mass tourism market.

He may be right. Few properties have done well in the past two decades, but selected cottage colonies and small hotels which have placed their emphasis on service have done better than the larger, and in some cases more downscale, hotels which have closed.

This is not to say that declaring a hotel is five-star and charging the prices which go along with it is the sole answer. The closures of upmarket properties such as Lantana and Glencoe show small is not always beautiful.

But it is unlikely that Bermuda with its high labour and airfare costs can go head to head with other mass market destinations.

Fewer rooms and higher service may well be the answer. It will require retraining and it will mean job losses, but if a more efficient, profitable and stable hotel industry is the result, then it will have been worth it.